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It’s been a long while since I’ve posted a Jamaican track. Well, this one is a truly great track. The Upsetter’s “Zion’s Blood” in many ways is the clarion call for all dub musicians. Lee “Scratch” Perry’s signature style is already in full bloom here, while the Upsetters perfectly marshall their talent into a mystical…
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Nick Drake’s “Hazey Jane I” will always be the track that I hold closest to my head and heart. The older I get, the more its personal meaning keeps shifting its shape allowing me to understand my own sentiments. There are times when I feel the sadness in it, or when I feel the bracing…
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The Memorial Day weekend is almost over. This is a great track to ease out of it. Who knew that a bunch of British funksters, who probably never traveled to the South, could capture the feel of a southern breeze. Freeez’s “Southern Freeez” is the perfect middle point between West Coast R&B and early British…
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This party track I absolutely love. Rick James’s “Ghetto Life” hits you both in the booty and noodle. The booty can’t resist Rick’s ultra nasty syncopating groove. Then the mind, especially for someone like me raised in the ghetto, gets moved by Rick’s surprisingly honest and absolutely enlightening verses. Rick for all his negative aspects…
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Track of the Day: When this party track hits, it hits hard (actual song starts at 1:30min mark). Cherelle’s “Saturday Love” produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis was a dry run for the beat driven R&B they introduced in Janet Jackson’s Control. Such a brilliant rhythm track, so spare at various strategic points, essentially…
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Now this is an elemental track, the kind you put after a real banger like yesterday’s. Who’s Who “Hypnodance”, released in 1979 off of Palace Palace, is just a churning mystical slice of French space disco. Simply try resisting the groove. Resistance is futile. The track’s got you hooked. Just an interesting side note the…
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Heatwave’s “The Groove Line” released in 1978 on the Central Heating album is just one mighty piece of rhythm. Its one of the best odes to just giving yourself up to the dance. Rod Temperton, from the decidedly unfunky English town of Cleethorpes, conceived and produced this groove a year before he was recruited by…
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The party tracks continue. Roger Troutman, talk box/vocoder and guitar player extraordinaire, posits one serious statement for any partier: how much bounce is in your ounce? I have good reason to believe that the more you play Zapp’s “More Bounce to the Ounce” the more bounce you get to your ounce. In terms of party…
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My favorite party tracks are the ones that still sound good three rooms down. You know what I’m talking about? When you hear walls rattle with rhythm and the closer you get to the source the more killer the rhythm sounds. This song by Bobbi Humphrey “Fun House” off the 1974 album of the same…
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Memorial Day weekend is upon us. What a perfect time to breakout some of my favorite grillin’, BBQ’ing, vibin’ tracks. Whenever I want to get the party started, without fail, the greatest non-BBQing, BBQing track always starts to play: ABBA’s “Eagle”. I say this, because the device I use to get the party started is…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist mpb neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic